The Michael Knowles Show - Top Male Porn Star's Shocking Story Of Suicide and Hope | Joshua Broome

Episode Date: May 27, 2023

Join Michael Knowles as he engages in a candid and transformative interview with Joshua Broome, a former adult film star. Michael dives into Broome's personal journey, including the challenges he faced in the adult entertainment industry and his decision to pursue a new path in life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me. And baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet.

No. Krisby, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley 36-2326 participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. You know, I did a thousand films over about a six-year period. You had to have a current, like full panel, like SDD and AIDS test. You would look is the test clear, great?

and that's what I would know about the girl until I walked into the room and had sex with it. When I was a teenage boy, I thought there were certain jobs that were probably a lot of fun. Being an astronaut was probably one of them, being, I don't know, a competitive surfer, that seemed kind of cool. And of course, every teenage boy thinks, man, what would it be like to be a porn star? That's got to be kind of crazy, huh? Boy, wouldn't that be a great job? That was not my calling. I probably didn't, you know, I'm not like the most muscular guy in the world. probably wasn't going to happen. And probably, I think in retrospect, that's a good thing. I am joined today, however, by someone who did become a porn star and who became the top porn star in the world,

won the award. Whatever the award is for top porn star, he won it. That would be Joshua Broom. Turned out the job was not all teenage boys might think it would be cracked up to be. Joshua, thank you for coming on the show. Yeah, glad to be here. So, I'm pleased to say, For all my sins, I'm not familiar with your work. Okay. But I was talking to some people who are familiar with your work. Okay.

And you were not just a guy who did a porn movie or two. Right. You were a big guy in this industry. Yeah. You made it to the top of the industry. Yeah. One, how the hell do you get involved in that kind of thing? And then how'd you get out?

Yeah. So from a big picture standpoint, I got in the industry by thinking, you know, okay, someone who is in the acting and modeling industry, if I put myself in closer proximity to the industry that I wanted to be in, it would make sense. It would make me getting jobs easier. So I did that and it worked. I got an agent. So I was predominantly doing some runway along with some print and then commercials and stuff like that. I was an aspiring actor, not acting very much. But, had a reel, had an agent, had a lot of aspirations. Which is more than most actors, actually. Yeah, I was doing... To be represented and to be auditioning, yeah. Yeah, 100%. I was doing well.

Like, there was no reason to make the decision that I made because a lot of people would say, you know, I needed money, I needed to do this, or there was some kind of trauma, you know, that there was nothing pointing me to that direction. Yeah, I found myself there. But to answer your question, I move out to Hollywood.

Like many other people, you're pursuing your dream, but you need to do something to mediate your expenses. So I found myself working at a restaurant. And in that restaurant, three girls sat down. There were these beautiful girls, and I go over to them. And I thought, you know, maybe I'll get their number or a good tip or whatever. And they invite me to meet with their agent. And they ask me if I want to be an actor. And I'm like, yes, you know, this is a great opportunity for me. Maybe they're working on a project or maybe they know a casting director or something like that like that but like no no we're talking about pornography and i was like i never considered it but i was very intrigued and being someone um you know i didn't have a reason to say

no so i said sure i'll meet with your agent and i meet with this agent and he was like um he asked me three questions he asked me uh what did my upbringing look like you know how did i grow up uh what was i doing in l.a and what did i hope to accomplish And I was like, well, I grew up, you know, pretty much just me and my mom. And I want to be an actor. So that's why I'm here. And I guess what I want to accomplish is to be famous. And he was like, perfect. You know, I can make your name famous. You know, you'll make, you know, X amount of dollars. And then it actually is advantageous for you that you have this acting background because the pornography industry is shifting from just making these like one-off scenes where they're carrying movies and their scripts and all the stuff. So if you have acting experience and you can bring that into that, it'll be great. There'll be a great runway for you to have all the things that you said that you wanted.

So being someone who's naive and didn't really have a good foundation to say no, I was like, well, how big of a deal could it be if I do one? Right. And that one, it, you know, for a lack of better terms, you know, even it was like, 2006 went viral. So like 500,000 views back then, massive. And very quickly, I have an agent that I beg to represent me calling me saying that they can't represent me anymore because they don't want to be associated with my likened. So you're a legit acting agent, says, I'm dumb. So you sign up with the porn agency, you do the scene in order to

help your mainstream acting career. And then as a result of that, you become so famous that you're mainstream agent dumps you. I want to go back to that. Yeah. There was three questions. Sure, sure. I asked you. So I get the latter two questions. Yeah. What are you doing here? What do you want to accomplish? Where do you see yourself? What about that first question? Why did he ask you that first question about your childhood? And how did you give him the answer that he was looking for? Yeah, I mean, I think, in retrospect, it was how can I manipulate you? You know, so for me, saying, okay, I'm from a broken home. You didn't have a father. You probably didn't have leadership. You probably are looking to prove something or looking to find something. I can take

that want and that desire. And if I tell them something that's affirming, which is an innate desire that exists in each and every person, like you want to be affirmed, you want to feel loved, you want to feel like you matter. And those are good things, but if they're manipulated, they'll lead you down a path that you never intended to go. How common is that in porn? Is it just across the board? Everybody comes from. Across the board, because at the end of the day, when you lay your head down on a pillow,

it doesn't matter how much money is in your bank account. Like, no one wants to be a prostitute. Right. Like, no one desires that. No one is, regardless of what you say, like, if someone's addicted to pornography and they believe the lie to be true is that, you know, it's this will be fun, this will be this, this will be that. if you believe that to be a real reality, like, sure, might, someone might say, I want to do this,

but no one seeks out that. Yeah. But people do seek out fame. Sure. And they do. And what's really interesting about your story is often you will hear female porn stars. Yeah. Later on, say, I was abused.

This was terrible. Yeah. Of course. Of course that's the case. Men and women are different. And women are abused. it would seem much more by the industry. You don't hear it as much from the men.

And you think, well, men, we can kind of divorce sex from our emotional life. And oh, man, we just get the fun part of everything. Yeah. But porn wrecked you too. Yeah, 100%. I would say it wrecks everyone. Because if you operate in a way that's contradictory to the way that you were wired to operate, the byproduct of that is there's going to be significant trauma mentally and emotionally.

And regardless of if you choose to suppress that and what that might look like in your life practically, that's probably going to be different from person to person. But you don't live that life and go and be healthy unless you deal with that. So you agree to do the scene. Yeah. It goes viral. It goes viral. and then my agent calls me,

they had come to know that that happened. And then a few weeks later, something probably even worse for me, my mom calls me. And she's like, well, your uncle said that someone at work told him that I had done a porn movie. And I was humiliated. And for me personally,

like my mom had me when she was 16, and she made significant, sacrifices for the things that we had. When I started pursuing modeling and acting, that started at 13. So getting comp cards, getting headshots, you know, I didn't talk the way that I talk now. It's like I was very, like, I grew up in a really small town in South Carolina. Like I could not, I said like, they made up words that my grandma would say, like, mater and tater, like, super country bumpkin.

So I did all these things that my mom really couldn't afford, but she made a way because she wanted me to have a better life than she did, and it was something that I was passionate about, and she did everything that she could to provide for me, and yet I found myself squandering those things. The equity that we gained along the way, it just kind of blew up. So you have this phone call with your mother. Yeah. Is it a sort of, I'm never speaking to you again, or is it a, why are you doing this job? So my mom, my mom, even keel all the way, she's like Joshua, Luke, growing up in the South, like Joshua, like, you know, you're okay, Joshua Luke Luke, uh, you know, you better heighten your awareness. Joshua Luke Broom, you run, you know.

So she was just like Joshua Luke Broom, like, why would you do that? It's like, I love you, but you are better than that. And I think that's something that you have to wrestle with in your life. You know, in some aspect, someone, you'll, you'll make a decision that leaves you at a crossroads and someone in your life, hopefully, is going to say, here's a better way. If you've compromised or you've done something that you shouldn't have done, that you messed up, and now you're at a fork in the road, and you're having this conversation with someone,

it's like, okay, this is what you should do, but it's going to require change. It's going to require hard work, and it's so much easier to not do the hard work, change directions, do whatever needs to be done to change the direction that you're going. So I chose to, you know, push her away, even though she was saying, I love you. That was a response. I love you, but you're better than that. Why would you do that? You just squandered everything that you've worked for the last, you know, almost 10 years. Right. Right. But you got one thing you wanted, which is you got fame. Sure. Did you get money? Is the money any good or no? I mean, it's almost like a personal trainer. So a personal trainer that works at, you know, L.A. Fitness probably makes $8 or $9 an hour.

and they get, they don't get paid. So like you charge $7,800 a person for personal training. They don't get that money. The organization gets that money and they get an hourly rate. Right. But if you are, you know, if you start personal training on your own and you're like paying a gym, you know, a fee and you can make money that way. But my point is some personal trainers will make $200,000, $400,000 a year and some personal trainers will make 30.

So porn is the same way. If you are in demand, you can charge more and how much you work is dependent on you. It's just like the regular acting or any other talent. Like any industry, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. If you're good at your trade and there's a demand, you can charge more money. And if there's a demand, you'll work more.

And that was my case where I did a thousand films over about a six-year period. Wow. And for me... How many days a week? Are you working at that? So I'm doing like 20, 25 films a month. Whoa. So you're working like every day.

Yeah. It just becomes something that was incredibly monotonous. You know, like I would show up the set and, you know, do what I was paid to do and go about my business. Did you know these girls? I mean, you, so in the industry, there's like 30 to 40 guys that work all the time. and there's just a constant influx of girls. I would say, even when I was in the industry, there's not like a superstar.

That was like days of old because it's so saturated that people are, you know, neurologically, you get that, you know, that dopamine hit to your synapse and you're looking, but you're always looking for new and you're looking for more. So the girls are, you know, constantly evolving and the guys don't matter as much. Yeah.

But for a director standpoint, so a director, is more often than not, there's a production company that he has a deal with, and then director hires talent, puts together a film, gets it edited, and hands it back to the production company. Right. So all the weight is on the director to get this film done. So if you hire a guy that can't do the job, then there's no product. Yeah.

So you just squandered $20,000, $30,000. Because everyone else is getting paid no matter what, because everyone else did their job, but the guy didn't. So the guy is the only person at risk of not getting paid. So what the directors would do, they will find like five to ten guys that they hire on a consistent basis, and those will be the guys. They hire every single time. So that's why I was shooting so much. I just became reliable.

One of the – yeah, there was nothing special about me. It's like for me in that industry that was full of people who, you know, had significant trauma, that had drug problems. you know, like, you name it. I was just a normal guy that took my job seriously. I showed up on time. I did what I was supposed to do, and I didn't cause any problems. So during this time, you're, you're not addicted to drugs, you're not falling into these vices that are traditionally associated with Yeah. So for me, it's interesting because I'm someone who's incredibly extroverted, but I found myself because you're so exposed when you're doing them, it's like the last thing you want to do is be around people, really. So I found myself, I wouldn't go to parties or anything like that unless I was being

paid to make an appearance or something like that. I was, you know, pretty much a recluse. So you're working in the industry. Yeah. There's this steady stream of girls coming in. Yeah. What is the relationship like when the cameras are off? Yeah. Between the guys and the girls in the industry. Did you, did you have any qualms about these girls are obviously very damaged people. Yeah. Or is it just, oh, hi, nice to meet you. Okay, we're going to go do our job now and, you know, see you next time.

Well, if you, if you get rid of the introduction and the exit, yeah. So, I mean, literally, so the way that a normal scene would work is the director is going to shoot something called Pretty Girls, and it's just photos of the girl, and then you would come in and you would take photos with the girl, and then you would leave. and then you would just walk into the room. Like, the only thing I knew about the girl is her legal name and the fact that, you know, you had to have a current, like full panel, like SDD and AIDS test.

So that had to be current. So every 21 days you had to have a new test. So you would look, do the IDs match the test. Is the test clear, great? And that's what I would know about the girl until I walked into the room and had sex with her. and then the guys were taking erectile dysfunction medication, the girls were using lube or numbing cream. It was so far from anything that was remotely intimate.

So was the byproduct of you being in proximity? Do people end up dating? Sure. But who else are you going to date? Right. You know, like there's no girl out there that's going to be okay. And I mean, in certain scenarios, sure, but there's no legitimate relationship happening outside of someone who's spending time in that industry. So he would start dating. And this for me was really detrimental

mentally. So you're dating someone. And so I'm dating a girl. We've been dating for a little over a year. She's popular. I'm popular. And we're, of course, like friends. I'm friends with the other guys in the industry because we're around each other. So who else? So now you're sitting at dinner with me and my girlfriend and him and his girlfriend. He had sex with my girlfriend today. and I had sex with his girlfriend yesterday, and we're sitting there pretending that we're in a monotonous, you know, a monogamous relationship,

and it's all fine because it's just work. And the impact that has on you, mentally and emotionally suppressing reality, is so destructive. And, Michael, to be honest, like, I mean, 30 people, I mean, we can touch on this a little bit later, but 30 people that I knew, I knew their real names,

I knew things about them. 30 people, since I got out of the industry, I got out of the industry about 11 years ago, have taken their life, either suicide or overdose. And it's because more often than not, the girls, there's a common trajectory. It's a girl gets in the industry, she becomes popular,

and then the agent has the girl fill out some stuff, and you have a no list. And this no list is, you know, I'm not, willing to do certain things. X, Y, Z. Don't want to do gay stuff. Right. Or, I mean, for girls, it's like, anal. And it's crazy. Like, it's crazy because, like, these identity factors,

you're placating aspects of people, people's identity, and you're making them genres of pornography. Like, you know, it's like, like, for example, interracial porn is not interracial porn. It's specifically any other race with a black man across the board. Like, that's interracial porn, which is incredibly racist. Not like a white guy and a black guy and a black girl, it's not interracial. Which is insane. It makes no sense.

Right, right. It's like blatant. But it's just a specific fetish or something. Yeah, yeah. I mean, all these niches become, you know, but I say that to say, so these girls say, I don't want to do X, Y, and Z, and then they become popular, and their popularity tapers off some, and their agent goes to different studios. It's like, well, how much would you pay?

for this girl to do this thing that she hasn't done yet because there's this novelty to it because she hasn't done it. Because people know that she says, this is on my no list. Yeah, well, because the- Because you don't see her in these. Right. But what happens is the agent goes to the studio and auctions off this thing that she doesn't want to do. And then the agent comes back to the girl and says, hey, I know you haven't been working as much lately, but this studio just reached out to me. you'd be willing to do this thing that's on your no list, they want to give you $50,000 and you'll become relevant again. What do you think?

And then she does it, and then it becomes normalized. And then there's no allure to it anymore. Now it's just something that she does. And all those things on the list, she eventually does them. And then, in addition to that, the agent, he also has an escorting agency, which is glamorized prostitution, where he's essentially selling this girl, sex trafficking, he's selling this girl on a site to regular people,

and just because there's a check and that person's getting an STD test, it's justifiable, and now she's doing that. Is that common too that? This is normal, across the board. Like, anyone that becomes popular in any capacity, this is what happens. And then the phone stops ringing as the, popularity dissipates. Right. And then eventually they feature dance. So feature dancing is at a strip club. You would, if someone would have some kind of name, there would be some novelty around

them, which would bring people in, and they'd pay them a fee on top of whatever tips they would get. But that's like bottom of the barrel. That's like them like holding on for dear life. But eventually, the phone stops ringing. And they've been told for five years, which is crazy. so girls start to age out of the industry around 30. But these girls, they've been told for five years, this is who you are, you can't do anything else, no one else is going to want you, you're going to have to continue to compromise

so that you can become relevant again. Once all the compromise is gone, you're left with this scary thing because if you believe a lie to be true, it's true to you. So this girl believes my worth is indicative of me selling myself for sex. There's nothing else that I can ever do. No man's ever going to want to marry me.

There's no organization that's ever going to want me to contribute to it because I'm worthless. I'm dirty. I'm damaged goods. This stuff's always going to be on the internet. And they choose to medicate or they just take their lives. So 30 people that I was in the industry with, that's their story. Mostly women or?

Like 28 of those women. man, and that's just people that I was close to, the number is far greater, and it's not just overdose and suicide. It's people putting themselves in situations where, you know, it's, it's really, like, it's not, I hate to say it's interesting, but it's insane to think about how many girls end up in relationships where the abuse is great enough where they're murdered. Because you put yourself in situations that you would never put yourself in because you devalue yourself. Right. It's like, I deserve this because I'm, you know, whatever.

And you just live your life like that. And even like all of my roommates that I had when I was in the industry, dead. But it's because they lived their life in such a way where they didn't care if they lived. You know, like one guy fell off a balcony. He was drunk in Mexico and fell off a balcony. Like, he would have never done that. And what's so sad is when they release his obituary, it says his stage name and how many people porn movies he did and on X, Y, and Z, and doesn't even talk about the man that he was.

Right. That's your epitaph, right? If that's what you're known for, that's your epitaph. One of the big criticisms of the porn industry that you hear, especially from feminists, is that it's dominated by these male producers who are taking all the money and they're being financially and professionally abusive of the women to say nothing of the physical abuse. But then the pro-porn people will say, okay, then the porn performers can just go on to only fans or presumably there are copycat websites out there where the performer has control over the production and they're keeping more of the money or whatever. And this has exploded, even though I think the vast majority of the women on only fans don't make any money really at all. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's pretty sad.

So it's like, it's, so what's happening across the board, especially any of the girls from the porn industry or any, most of the girls that have any kind of notoriety, it's catfishing 2.0. So what's happening is it's curated content. So it's, you know, film, it's, it's videos and photographs that were shot prior to. And then you got, you know, Joe Blow sitting in a basement, having a conversation with these people. because... So on OnlyFans, you can chat... Well, I guess not. So you can...

It seems like you're chatting with the person? Well, here it is. Every single time you message someone, you have to pay for that message. Every time you get a video, you have to pay for that video. So it's a subscription base. So the subscription to that person might be a dollar or $20. But the money is made in the DMs. And on the DMs, you have to pay per message and you have to pay per video.

But the messaging... and the pictures and the video, it's getting sent to you by a person that's just pulling stock footage that already exist and you believe that you're having a conversation in real time with someone, and you're paying for every response, and it's just someone sitting in a basement somewhere.

It's probably some dude. Yes. Oh, man, that's awful. That's why I'm saying it's catfishing 2.0. Oh, man, that is so... That makes a thing that... It would be sad and degrading, even if it were this porn actress

personally they're doing, but it is so much worse. But then, if you're the guy and you're not going to meet this girl, you're not going to marry this girl, you're not going to, if your only interaction is just these videos and these messages, does it even matter? Sure. Does it? I don't know. You're just reading these messages. Does it matter that some fat guy in a basement rather than some like cute porn lady? Well, because your emotions are real, and you're forming an emotional connection with this person. And in your telling your brain, your mind, your heart, it's okay with me buying intimacy. So I'm going to believe that's, A, okay, and B, I'm probably going to distance myself from any opportunity of engaging. in reality because there's an opportunity for me to be rejected. There's, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of risk involved.

And so, but what if this becomes my expectations and nothing can meet my expectations because my expectations are built on something that's not real? Because they used to have the old phone sex lines. Sure. In the 90s, it was, you dial a 1,900 number. Yeah, but you believe, even that, you believe, you're talking to this sexy girl, you're probably not. Right. You're probably not.

Right. If you're working the hotlines, you're not working in front of the camera. You're not some smoking high girl sitting there at two in the morning on your phone. You're just not. Yeah. Like all of that stuff is built on creating a reality that's fictitious. That's why it's scalable. It's scalable because it's not real. And the opportunity cost that you point out, you can't be messaging this illusion. of this hot chick who's really probably a fat dude every night and simultaneously be pursuing a healthy romantic relationship that might lead to marriage. You can't, if you do one, you can't do the other. But you're also disconnecting yourself from reality. Yeah. Because what happens, it, like, compromise in any area of your life will lead to compromise in every area of your life.

Right. So it will impact your integrity. It will impact, like, if, if I believe relationships are built on transaction, Michael, the moment that you can't do something for me and you text me and you need to have a conversation with me or you want me to help you move a couch, man, you haven't done anything for me lately. Why am I going to respond to you? Why am I going to answer your phone call? Because I had this transactional mindset. Right. And that could bleed into your family. Well, absolutely. Well, I'm not going to value your relationship. I'm not going to value quality time. I'm not going to value, you know, a multitude of things because I'm I'm disconnected from what's real.

What about for the girls, though? So I see how awful this is for the consumers. Yeah. And for everyone who's around the consumers. Yeah. But these girls, so let's say, there was one girl who made headlines because she sold her bathwater and made like a zillion dollars doing it or something. Yeah.

Okay, that's the headline you say. I made a bazillion dollars with some stupid thing on OnlyFans. But then you look at the statistics, the vast majority of these women are making nothing. Yeah. And you think of, again, talk about opportunity cost. the moment that you put one picture of yourself up, the moment you present yourself as a porn girl on the internet, yeah. That changes the trajectory of your life.

Well, also, you can't do something like that. You can't compromise your dignity without a belief that knowing it's going to cost you something. Yeah. Like, if I was looking at porn in a library or wherever, you know, in a crime. coffee shop, whatever, wherever, wherever. Even if I was looking at something on Instagram that was slightly inappropriate. If someone walks past me, yeah, of course. Or, you know, I get rid of it. Why? There's a deep level of shame, and there's just something about sexuality, there's something about that, that is ingrained in you so deeply that you can't deny. Yeah. And when you start to

deny the things that are true that you cannot run from, it's going to cost you more than you would ever want to pay. And I know that person. Right. It's so evil. It's just so powerfully evil. And I know it's a fallen world and there's lots of evil to go around. But this seems so particularly evil. Did you get a glimpse of what the top of the industry looks like? Meaning, beyond the casting directors, beyond even the distributors or whatever. How conscious are the people who run this? Not at all. They're not conscious of it.

I mean, how aware are they of how people are this? They're just not aware. They're aware of how much money they're making. So you have Mind Geek that's the organization out of Canada that owns most, you know, they've monopolized the porn industry and they do that. That's the one that owns Porn Hub? Porn Hub and many others, many, many others. Okay.

Like, if it's something that someone could recall, they own it. Wow. And in addition to that, they own traffic junkie. So traffic junkie is when you go to a porn site, it captures your information and sells it to Facebook and Google. So when you are on Facebook and you've been watching porn earlier that day or that night before and you see that inappropriate thing pop up on your Facebook feed, it's an advertisement, it's not an accident, my friend.

Wow. It's the very evidence that someone's been selling your information. So it's funny because if fear of, the just punishments of our Lord and God is not enough to keep people from doing bad things because people mess up and they do bad things all the time. The just punishments or the unjust punishments maybe of these website cookie trafficking companies, that might put a little fear into people too. So the company, this type of company that exists is owned by the porn distributor,

the biggest porn distributor. Yeah, absolutely. So Trafficking Junkie is owned by Mind Geek, which owns Porn Hub and many other organizations. organizations. But the scary thing is, so the porn industry just eclips a hundred billion dollar industry, $100 billion. So if you take the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NBA, and put all the revenue together, it still doesn't eclipse how much money porn makes. If you take how many people visit Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter on a daily basis, it doesn't eclipse how many people are watching porn on a daily basis. In the neighborhood of 30 to 35 percent

of all the data transferred on the internet on a daily basis is some type of pornography. But you're telling me that the people who run this extremely rich, powerful industry, who see the data, maybe they don't meet the performers, but they at least... Oh, they absolutely. Completely detached from any human interaction.

Wow. Because the way that porn makes money is monetized through viewership, just the same way, like YouTube's monetized. YouTube got that model from Pornhub. Like all the major technological advancements that you see that are happening, they're taking the model that came from porn. I had an academic buddy of mine once told me that porn sets a lot of the technological advancements

of these products, including when you're on YouTube and you skip ahead and a thumbnail pops up. And it's like, here's the part of the video. My friend was telling me, this comes from porn because people want, you know, they have shortened attention spans, and so they want to jump ahead. So I guess that people say that to give credit to the porn industry. They say, look, they're moving the technology forward. And even so, the way that, like, you know, the way that you become monetized and make money off of YouTube or any other social media is you get to the point where there's enough viewership where you can run ads on your media. Right.

That came from porn. Wow. The thing that's so hard for me to believe, though, is just that these people at the time. Maybe it's easy to believe. People at the top, they're just so divorced, they're just looking at numbers on spreadsheets. They really don't see the human connection. If I were running an industry and one of my top workers came out and said, hey, 30 of my friends killed themselves in the last decade because of this industry. It would be hard for me running the industry not to notice that.

But they do notice it. You know what they do? Someone takes their life. So there was a specific example of this. I won't use the name. But there was a girl that she didn't want to work with a specific male performer. This performer had done some homosexual porn. Okay.

And she chose, like, I don't want to work with this person. And then she was attacked on social media because she didn't want to work with this person. For being homophobic. Right. And then so now she's being attacked. To the point. where she ends up taking her own life. She hangs herself in a public park.

This happened like 2016, 2017. And then, so what the industry does and has done, so this is their playbook, someone dies, and then they make a best-of film to honor her, but they monopolize off of this tragedy. So not only do they see it, they make more money on it. Right, they figure out how to capitalize on it. Sure.

But to them, it's just a product. Well, people are products. People are products in sexist transactional across the board. That's why there's so much detachment. Right. And that's the danger for the consumer as well. Say more about that. Well, the danger for the consumer.

So if I am watching pornography, I'm forming this relationship with a screen in my hand, and I'm detaching myself from reality. I'm becoming disconnected from what is. intimacy actually is. I'm re-engraining this, you know, this neurological pattern where I can be selfish. I, I'm not going to be rejected. Sex is transactional. It's about me. When I want it. And it just, it just, just reintegrates this behavior in myself where it's nothing like being in an actual relationship with a human being whatsoever. Now, you as the performer, Are you seeing this happen to you that you're just not viewing people as people?

You're becoming dehumanized or no? I would say yes, but it first happens with you. You detach yourself from reality because, number one, you're going by pseudonym. You don't even go by your real name. So it's interesting that the first thing that the director promised me is I can make your name famous, but the first thing that happened was my name actually died. because if I can detach you from any kind of belief in, you know, there's some kind of moral, you know, aspect of this that I should or shouldn't be doing, if I'm calling myself by another name,

then it detaches you from it. Because- And it covers the shame. You, Joshua Broome, have a mother, you have a God, you have an upbringing, you have a moral sense, at least some kind of moral sense that you, but you, whatever your performer name is, right. Well, that guy just, he just got invented five minutes ago. Right. That guy doesn't have anything.

Yeah, it's like the Tropic Thunder. It's like, I'm a dude playing a dude disguises another dude that doesn't even know what dude he is. You know, but it's true, though. It's like you, because you're, you have a stage name and everyone around you calls my stage name. And that, for me, that became real in that I had people in my life. saying, hey, I love you.

What are you doing? Yeah. Like, you could be doing other stuff. Why are you doing this? And then you hear that, and you're like, well, either I have to take into consideration what they said, or I pushed them away. And I pushed anyone that was speaking sensibly to me away, and I just surrounded myself with a bunch of people who were patting me on my back on my way to hell.

Wow. So how long into the industry before you start to think, I've pushed away all these people that I love and I'm not happy. How long is that time period? Yeah. So for me, I think to revisit a question you asked earlier, he said, can you make money in this industry? For me, someone who I grew up not having a father in my home yet, The father, he was in the same town. Grew up in a very small town in South Carolina,

and the added dynamic was, I saw him. I knew he was my father, but he was never a father in my home or my life. Did he acknowledge that you were his son? Yes, but that was it. There was no, there was like a few attempts. And, yeah, so there was a few attempts for him to be part of my life in some capacity, but he ended up getting married, and then, you know,

They were both 16 at the time, and my mom chose to keep me, and he chose to continue living his life. And I would see him, and that made me feel, what's wrong with me? Like, it was confusing at first, and then it made me angry. Specifically because I saw this man in this healthy dynamic. Like, he was married, and they had kids, and they had a nice home, and, you know, they had all these things, and it was just me and my mom struggling. Wow. Most people who grow up without a father, what do I know? I guess in my imagination of this, the father is on the other side of the world. The father is just not there. I imagine it's much, much harder if you see this guy and you see his new family. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely

different aspects of fatherlessness where it's like someone in my case or like there's a, there's various traumas that come with levels of fatherlessness, like divorce or maybe a father that's in the home, but he's not present. But yes, to your point, it was very frustrating that the thing that I felt like I needed most and the thing that I wanted most was in arm's reach but had no interest in me. Were you aware of this at the time, or you were just angry and you didn't know why? Well, I was confused until I was angry, but I was always aware, you know, because he was there. Right. So that calls, so me having a high achiever personality, it's like, well, I can out work my feeling of lack. I can overcome my feeling of worthlessness or my need to be valuable.

So through affirmation, it was, you know, first it was scholastics, then it was sports, then it was getting the girl that no one else could get, then getting the most girls, and so on and so on. But being in that industry, that personality trait came with me, both me feeling inadequate and me feeling like I need to prove myself. Right. So being someone who is somewhat analytical, I love. statistics and it's like okay just I'm tracking literally on a spreadsheet once I make a million dollars then I'll be happy I'll be fulfilled it's like so I'm like tracking it like at some kind of game I do it I make a million dollars and guess what it didn't work and then the same thing like in

the industry I got nominated for performer the year I got nominated three years in a row didn't win didn't win didn't win fourth year I won it and I thought like that was like the mount rush more of porn because it was this big award award show and then it was not only the actors and the actresses but the you know the organizations the studios like they voted on it so they meant like you're the guy and i won and when i won i thought that it would bring me the sense of relief this this this feeling of lack this frustration this pain i thought i would experience joy and fulfillment and i did for a second and but it didn't work it didn't last and that quickly amplified my anxiety deepened my depression it took me to a place

where decision after decision after decision led me to a, okay, I'm now making a plan to take my life. So at that point, you are truly the dog who catches the car. There is nowhere else for you to go. You've made a lot of money. You're the number one guy. There is no achievement to get in this line of work. I never got into video games, except for a little period of time. When I was like five years old, I played Donkey Kong. And then when I was a teenager, I got a kick out of Grand Theft Auto. Oh, yeah. Because it was so crazy. It was so, you know, you're just running people over and flying helicopters into buildings,

doing all this crazy stuff. And I remember, though, playing the video game in this aimless way, not on the missions, just aimlessly shooting people or whatever, robbing things. Yeah. And after a certain point, I realized this was pointless. and I'd just go kill myself in the game. And I've thought back on that at some point over the years. And I think there's something profound in that intuition,

that if you're aimless and you're just doing things for pleasure and then you reach what would appear to be the maximum amount of pleasure, I've never considered ending my life. But I think intellectually I could see how someone could get to that place. Yeah. And you get to that place. Yeah.

Yeah, I literally got to a place where... So it's interesting. So I just came from... I was doing a speaking engagement in Atlanta. And it was the first time I've been back to Atlanta since the last time I left Atlanta. The last time I left Atlanta was 11 years ago, and that's what I had done my last film.

You did a porn film in Atlanta. In Atlanta. now. Okay. Um, 11 years ago. And then I'm, you know, flying back to LAX. And in my head, I'm like, making the decision like, okay, I'm going to take my life when I get home, go home. I get enough, I do some, some research and say how much, you know, these pain medications, like, would I have to take to overdose? I get it. I lined them up on the counter. I'm like, okay, I can't swallow this many pills at once, but so this. And then I've got this check in my pocket. And it's just like, it's just driving me crazy. It's this giant like cashiers check. I just feel it in my pocket.

I'm wearing slacks and I just feel it against my skin. It's driving me crazy. I'm not sure why I'm so aware of it. And then I take it out and I start thinking like, well, if I'm going to do this, I assume my bank account will go to my mom or my brother or something like that. So I'll go deposit this check and then I'll come back and take care of this. And I welcome to this bank. And normally I would just go to the Dropbox or they, ATM because on the memo of the check, it said, well, it was for. Like, it would have the title of the movie, which was always grotesque. And I was humiliated. I didn't want to look someone in the eye and say, hey, here's the check for me selling myself for seconds. I didn't want to do that. But today,

on this day, I didn't care. I was like, whatever, I don't care. I went through the line, you know, sign the check, slide the check across the counter, normal transaction. And I pivoted to walk away and she kind of stops me and she says, excuse me, Joshua, are you okay? Joshua, can I do something for you? And what she didn't know is it had been over a year since I had heard my name. I'd stopped answering my mom's text. I'd gotten rid of, like, I've unfriended anyone that followed me on social media that was like from my actual life, my fraternity brothers, my friends from high school,

My brother, I wasn't returning any text. I wasn't returning any calls. The only person that it existed was my stage name, which everyone on set called me. Everyone knew me. I was very well known. So the gym that I went to, the barbershop that I went to, like everywhere that I went, that's all that I heard.

Joshua did not exist, but when she said my name, it stopped me in my tracks and it wrecked me. Because all of a sudden I was faced with what was real. because at that moment, I'd created this plausible reality based on lies, guilt, and shame. Up to and including if the stage name guy kills himself, well, who cares? He's just, he's not real. Yeah. But if Joshua kills himself.

Yeah. Joshua was a kid. Joshua has a mom. Joshua is pissed off at his dad. Joshua has a brother. Yeah. So for me, what I felt immediately was guilt and regret from not letting my mom know if I was okay. Like that was the last few text message that she sent me. She's like, you know,

dang it, just tell me if you're okay or not. Like if you're not going to come home, if you're going to stay doing, then whatever you're doing, whatever, I just want to know if you're okay. And I was so selfish and so caught up in my shame and my pride that I couldn't even pick up with a phone or send a text and let my mom know that I was going to lie. And in that moment, when I heard my name that my mom had given me, my reality was challenged, and I felt the pain that I was numb to. So I ran home and I called my mom. And then my mom said what she had been saying for, you know, I'd been in L.A. for eight, nine years,

something like that, but I was in the industry for six. And she said the same thing she had said, I love you, you're better than this. Please come home. So I did. So that day, I called my agent. I called my PR person. I quit. I quit.

I'm out of here. I even found someone to sub-lease my place. I'm like, I don't care. You know, just pay rent. You can literally have everything in my home, like all my furniture, everything. I'm going to take some clothes. And I'm out of here. There's this odd paradox.

On the one hand, you're behaving in this extremely selfish way. On the other hand, you've completely neglected yourself and denied the existence of yourself. I say it's a paradox because I don't think it's exactly a contradiction or an impossibility. In fact, very often that would appear to be how these things go. Killing yourself is both extremely selfish and a complete rejection of the self. How is that? Yeah, it's an interesting thing to struggle with because on the outside, aesthetically,

you know, I was taking very good cater to myself, but I was dying inside. I think, you know, that's why it's so much easier to put on a mask and pretend, you know, for me, I just wanted the person in front of me to like me or to do the thing to get the affirmation. I didn't care about anything else, but I was disillusioned and disconnected from reality.

The power of the name is so, striking because we think, oh, who cares about a name? You can have a nickname, you can change your name. It's no big deal. That's just words, words, words. We call this a glass, but I could call this a parakeet. It's just whatever, it's just whatever it is. But that isn't true. Names do matter quite a lot. The first charge given to Adam in the Garden of Eden is name everything. All the way up to modern day, this big political fight that everybody seems to be in right now over transgenderism is basically a fight over names and the relationship between names and reality. If you call me Johnny or you call me Mary Sue, it's not going to, if you call me Rachel

Maddell, I'll probably laugh. But if you say that to someone who is in the transgender movement, that person will lose it. If you mispronown or misgender, meaning use the correct pronouns for somebody, this is the worst crime you can possibly commit against them. Because they know the power of a name. I mean, even the transgender transition is a kind of ritual suicide, right? Where you say, okay, my old self, that's my dead name. That's a dead person. Forget that person.

I'm this new person. It's hard not to see a parallel to what you're describing in the industry. Sure, sure. And that... And I think in a deeper way, in any aspect, it's like, it's an identity crisis. Yeah. If my identity is rooted in a belief around a feeling or a behavior, and I identify myself based on that, I'm going to constantly be in this identity crisis because there's actually an author of life that's given me an identity that I don't get to choose who or what I am.

But I can feel a certain way, but my feelings can't define me because I've already been defined by an author. I was talking to a exorcist on this show, actually. And we were talking about selling your soul to the devil. And he said, well, you know, you can't actually do that. Right. I said, what do you mean you can't do that? He says, you don't own your soul. Yeah.

Now yours. You didn't make your own life. You didn't craft your soul. And so you can't sell it. The devil tricks you and makes you think you can sell it. You actually can't sell it. You can't totally define yourself. We tried to do that a lot.

But you can't. You didn't choose how you came into this world. You damn well sure shouldn't choose how you go out of the world. Right. And so you have obligations to other people. And so this bank teller providentially calls out, says your name. Yeah. This hits you.

You call your actual mother, not your invented personas. Right. Yeah. I call my mom and then I run home. And then I spend two years just doing everything I can to cover up what I'd done. I literally, I had tattoos, cover them up with new tattoos, shaved my head, deleted my social media, did everything that I could to hide what I'd done.

Like Barry, like Genesis 2, Genesis 3. I'm running, I'm hiding, I don't want to be found, and I get to a place where I just, I'm okay. I look like I'm okay on the outside. I start working at a gym, and again, the personality trait is still there. It's like, that's just who I am. Like, regardless of what I'm doing, if I'm eating wings, I'm going to eat the most or the hottest. Like, I'm going to win.

I'm going to die to win no matter what. It's just who I am. So it's like, okay, if I'm going to be a personal trainer, I'm going to be the best thing, personal trainer there's ever been. And I quickly worked my way up in this gym and, you know, work my way into management. And I'm doing okay. But at night, I'm not doing okay. Because the reality of what's on the internet and people recognizing me, and me just wanting to be a regular person was nearly impossible, but I was almost in denial of that.

I consider myself a fairly meamy guy. Like, I'm fairly internet-y. I'm not very plugged into pop culture, but internety. I have a large collection of memes. And one of my producers, I will not say which one, embarrass this producer, said, are you aware of this meme of Joshua? And I said, I'm not. And he said, it's the same thing. funny meme. It's from a porn scene. It became, it took on a life of its own. Yeah. So it's you, it's you in a bathtub. Yeah. And someone comes in and says, hey, you're at the beach and you need a lifeguard or something. You say, I'm not on a beach. I'm in a bathroom or something. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, to, so there, there was this meme and it's been shared probably, I think

it's been shared over a hundred million times. It became really popular on me, uh, on Vine. Okay. And then it became really popular. on TikTok, but there's this scene where this goes to the ridiculous of the writing. Yeah. It happens in pornography, but I'm in a bathtub, and then a lifeguard runs in, and she's like, get out, there's a shark in the water. And I was like, what are you talking about, lady? Like, this is a beach.

It's not a, you know, this is a, this is not a beach. I'm in a bathroom. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I say. I say, this is not a beach, it's a bathtub. But with like straight face, you know? You know, it's funny. It is.

It's a very funny bit in that it's, maybe a lot of porn is like this. But that strikes me as it's so self-aware about what it is. There's no real pretense. It's just like, ha, ha, we're here. Right, yeah. She ran in with, like, the little, like, lifeguard thing. And she's wearing, like, she's dressed in, like, Baywatch. You know, she's got the red bathing suit on.

You know, and she comes in, I'm just sitting in the bathtub. And that's the meme. It's like, this isn't a beach, it's a bathtub. Like, is the meme. So if this went viral during the years of Vine, were you out of the industry at this point or were you still in it? Vine was like 2012-ish. Yeah, so I got out in 2012.

This is right around the time. Yeah, so it went viral then, and then people started like remaking it on YouTube, and then it got popular on TikTok as well. And then I found out about TikTok. And I was like, and I, so, through finding out, like, how popular TikTok was being, I took a peek at TikTok and I'm like, oh, this is not for me. This is bad. This is bad news. Yeah, so you think regular social media is bad? Tick-Tac is just cracked because there's no home screen. Right. You just always in some

video with music. And then, but then I talk with someone and it was like, well, there's, there's your, your for you page, and then there's a page where just the people you follow. Yeah. I was like, anyway. And they're like, well, you know, They were showing me data. It's like how many, you know, this is the most downloaded app, you know, in this age demographic and so on. And I started thinking like, well, okay, you know, my objective is to reach people with the gospel. So how could I leverage this for that? I'm like, let's think about this.

And then I start doing some research and then someone sent me like, hey, have you seen this meme? Or like, something about the meme? And I was like, I have no idea, you know? because it became popular, like, after I was out of the industry. So I have no idea about it. And I did some research on it. It's like, man, like 100 million views. Like 100 million times this thing's been shared.

It's like, as far as, like, popularity of memes, it was like top 20. You know, at one point, it was like one of the most popular mains that existed. And I was like, this is ridiculous. And then I made a TikTok around it. And it was like, but it was like, who I, who I used to be in who I am today. And it was just, and it was just like a back and forth of like, it was that picture and then like me getting baptized.

And then like that, a picture of me in the industry and then me getting married. And a picture of me in the industry. And then, you know, me like, you know, or. Yeah. And then, you know, it reached. So I've been sharing like not just with the meme, but just like sharing my testimony. And so just,

I shared something along that lines on Instagram a month ago, and it reached 7 million people. But the organization that we put together, so it's one thing to reach a lot of people, so we've got an ecosystem where there's, you know, using AI, there's key words that if you type, you'll get a message, and that message routes you to an opportunity to, you know,

like biblical literacy or, like, talk to a person, or if you're struggling with pornography, there's a website that we've created that there's 10 steps of how to be free from it. And so it took that. It's great to reach millions of people, but we took that and created a systemized way of connecting all those people to the next step, whether it be like freedom from pornography or hearing the gospel or being connected to a church or whatever. What's it like to be recognized in porn?

I have a very moderate, slight public profile. And so every now and again, someone will come up and say, hey, buddy, you know, loved your commentary on something. Sure. Or it's someone who wants to throw an egg at me. But it's always, people are open if they see me. Right. But with porn, people don't want to admit that they're watching it.

So do they come up to you? When I was in the industry, unapologetically, But, well, I guess I think you have to factor in the fact that, like, I was in Hollywood. I was living in Hollywood or I was in Vegas. Those were the places I was at the most. Right. So, unapologetically, people would come up and ask for autographs or to take pictures with me. Wow.

It was a very common occurrence. It wasn't just, you know, someone across the room, like, looks away. Well, that happens more often now than. Not a ton, but like, yeah. But so you are being recognized regularly, even now that you're back in your old town with your mother. Well, because from the outside looking in, like I'm months removed from being the most famous person in the industry.

So in just the way that content comes out, you know, it's not, it doesn't come out. You know, I film a film, yeah. I mean, there's stuff steadily coming out a year after I'm out of the industry. So people are like, what do you, aren't you that guy? Like, what are you doing here? Why are you working at a gym? Like, what are you doing in this?

What are you doing in North Carolina? Like, what are you doing? Wow. So it happened so often. I would just lie until I got found out. And then I had done over a thousand films. So I was one Google search away from, you know, everyone knowing everything I didn't want them to know.

Right. Did they connect your real name with your stage name? Was that a common thing? Well, it was like on IMDB, it was connected. Okay. Um, so it, and like, unfortunately, like, all the things that I had done that I was proud of were on there, but it got buried. Yeah. That's not that I did.

The avalanche report. Right. Yeah. Um, but yeah. So people would find, you know, I would, I would lie until I got found out and then I would just deal with it. Um, heard a lot of people. Um, almost got fired from different things. Um, people didn't want me to personal train them. Um, but I just continued chipping away. And then it just kind of.

became normal. It was like, okay, I'm this trainer that's operating at a high capacity. I'm a decent leader in the gym. So there's this stuff about them, but, you know, whatever. And it just becomes kind of normal. And then there's this girl that starts coming to the gym, super gorgeous. And I asked her out on a date, and she says, no, which I was like, what the heck? Excuse me? Yeah. I'm a good looking guy, personal trainer. Yeah, yeah. Got a million bucks. Yeah. But she says no. And And then she's like, well, we can go on a run if you want. And I'm like, all right, you know, I'll run with you. You know, I don't really love like doing long runs.

And you wouldn't run like a 5K. And I'm like, eh. But for you, yes, 100% I will run. And I go there to meet her and I'm waiting on her to get there. And I almost feel like my mom's voice in my head saying, don't you dare lie to her. Don't you hurt her? Because I'd hurt girl after girl after girl after girl. How so?

Just by being... Well, just I would not tell them about my past. And they didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. And it was sometimes withholding the truth is just as painful as not telling the truth at all. So, but for her, I'm waiting and I'm feeling like, don't you lie to her. And she gets there and we never made it to a run.

We continued walking. And I just look at her. I'm like, hey. I want to tell you something. I did a little bit of porn. She was like, excuse me? Come again. Can you say that one more time?

And then I was just like, tell the whole truth. You know, just like man up. Tell the truth. And then like, you know, I blacked out, like, five minutes, just like, you know, did all this stuff. And, you know, when I was, you know, just literally any bad thing that I could recall, just like spitting it out.

And then she's like pretty shocked. And then after a moment of obviously processing this insanity. Ends with like, I stole a chocolate bar when I was eight years old. I was like, I kicked my brother in the shin and I said it with someone else. But she looks at me and she says,

well, here's the deal. The worst thing you've ever done doesn't define you. And the greatest thing you'll ever do that doesn't define you either. You don't get to define yourself. God defines you. Do you know who God is?

And for me, I was used to putting on, I call it the first date mask. I don't know who I am, but I'm going to become whoever you want me to be. So I started regurgitating whatever I knew, like cosmological argument, like, yes, like blah, blah, blah, blah. And she asked me deeper questions that were simplistic, but very foreign to me. Are you plugged into a community anywhere? Are you attending church regularly?

What's your relationship with Jesus like? And I was like, whatever you're talking about, I don't. think I got that. And she's like, well, I've been a Christian since I was in seventh grade. My family's Christian. I'm not perfect by any means, but my relationship with Jesus is the foundation in which I live my life. So what kind of food do you like? I was like, what? I just told you the truth and you didn't reject me. I've been lying to people by whole life because I thought if anyone knew anything about me, the person that his own father rejected, why would you want to know integral details about me?

She was like, yeah, well, you know, what are some of your hopes, dreams? Like, what do you want to accomplish? I didn't have any answers. I didn't have the capacity to dream. Right. And we just walk and talk. And then the next weekend, so this was a, this was actually Easter eight years ago. And then...

This was Easter you went on the walk? Oh, man. You know, sometimes symbolism's a little on the nose. Yeah, yeah. And then the next week, she invites me to church. And I go, and I'm sitting in this church. And when I walk in, there's this wooden signage. And it says, we want to help people.

We want to love people where they are. and encouraging them to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. I was like, sounds good, but if you knew anything about me, no way. And then this pastor gets up, and it's this guy that reminds me my grandfather. And for me, the little bit of church that I had experienced was very Southern Baptist, but not, like, in no way good, where all I remembered was, if you have, a wrinkle in your shirt or a tattoo on your arm, you're going to hell. Yeah, that is the unforgivable sin, the wrinkle in your shirt.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I remembered. And yet this guy gets up here, and he's dressed somewhat casually, and then he starts talking about this dynamic between Jonathan and David. And when David died, he's talking about how historically the previous kingdom was completely wiped out because they didn't want the previous kingdom to think they had any access to the new kingdom. And David was different. He actually asked, hey, is there anyone left out of Jonathan's lineage?

And Mofablishath was still alive. And Mofabal Sheff, knew history, so he was expecting death. And instead, David brought him into his kingdom and restored his land. And then he keeps talking. He talks about, well, Romans 323 says that we've all sin and fall short of the glory of God. So who's guilty of sin? Everyone. And then Romans 623 says, the wage of sin.

is death. So each and every person, because of their sin, they're separated from a holy and perfect God. There's a bridge that you need to get to God that you don't have access to because you're imperfect. And he goes on to talk about how Jesus, fully God and fully man, came into this world and lived the life that we could never live. He bridged the gap, died on the cross, paid for all, sin for all time. It's through faith in him that changes everything. And for me, what it did was it contended with how I saw myself and how I saw God because I was like, there's no way that I could have access to God because I'm not good. And then wrestling with no one is good. It's an amazing feeling. Catholics have sacramental confession. Yeah.

Where we go in and we confess our sins to Christ. Right. And the priest is acting in persona or Christy in the person. Yeah. Yeah. And some weeks are worse than others. Yeah. Some weeks are a little lighter than others. But what's amazing is even understanding all of that, even understanding that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, even growing in sanctity, even growing in virtue, which can and does happen. Yeah. When you're standing in line to confess your sins, it's that same feeling you're describing. Like, well, no, that thing that I did, that's a bridge too far. There's no way. And then you go and you confess your sins in the priest's. says, okay, you know, agotay absolvo.

Yeah. You know, okay, say three Hail Marys. Get out of here, see you in a couple of weeks. And you can know it intellectually, but you can still feel that somehow. There's no, oh, that thing that I did, there's no way. Yeah. So for me in that moment, I surrendered and submitted to the fact that I could not fix myself. And there was a God that loved me so much that he sent his son into this world.

to suffer and die so that he could bridge the gap that I can never bridge. And something happened in my heart. For me, I surrendered my life and I let go of the burden that I'd been carrying. And the relationship with the father that I always desired, I realized I had through Christ. And so that happened that week after. And so two things happened. So number one, this girl, Her name's Hope. And she's been, her name's Hope, and she's been my wife for seven years. Oh, man. And we've got three kids.

And the other thing that happened was amazing. So I hear this. And then I go into this church and I'm like, hey, can I share this with someone? So I sit down with a pastor and I share with him my story. And then he connects me to another pastor. And this pastor is like, okay, I want to get a Bible in your hand. Here's how you read the Bible. here's, you know, just a little bit of observation, interpretation, application.

Here's how you read the Bible in proper context. And I just fall in love with the Bible. And I just can't get enough of it. And I actually start asking off of work. I'm like giving away, you know, personal training clients, and I'm spending 15 to 20 hours a week with this man at this church, and he's discipling me. And I just fall in love with the Bible to the point where I end up going to Bible college.

I go to Liberty and, you know, study Christian ministries and focus on biblical theology. and in the process, I start sharing my testimony. And I feel like, okay, in the early stages, as I'm not preaching, I'm just sharing my testimony. But as I'm up there, it's like, I felt this need to perform. You know, it's like for me, like I was a theater guy before I was, you know, the porn guy.

And it was like, for me, you know, I needed to emote emotion. I needed to, you know, I wanted people to cry. I wanted people to laugh. You know, I wanted to create this experience for someone based on what I'm, you know, I needed to create this experience for someone based on what I was, you know, portraying. And I, I wrote something. You know, I took my story and made it, you know, something that I wanted to present. And I get up there and I just feel this anxiety. And for me, you don't live the life that I've lived. Yeah, like, you're pretty comfortable in your own. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just like,

there's nothing that I'm ever going to do where I'm like, I'm, you know, there's cameras, there's lights, there's a stage, there's X amount of people, whatever. But for me, it's like, I love those situations, actually. But in this moment, I felt so much anxiety. I couldn't put my finger on it, and I felt this like, man, I got to do a good job. I've got to do a good job so that I will be liked. And I'd reverted back to that mindset where, like, I had to prove myself. I was still the kid that his father didn't want. Because sometimes you'll carry you know, this, I forget the surgery, but there's, you know, if you have this cataract and you have it removed, if you have it for a long time, even if it's removed and you completely

see through the lens that your mind can trick you into believing that it's still, your vision is still cloudy, even though it's not. So I've been walking with this emotional limp for so long that even though I had been freed from it, I'd practice walking with it so much. Yeah, it's muscle memory. Sure, right? And I step up to the, I step from the stage, I was like from backstage to the podium, but when I stepped onto the podium,

I just felt this overwhelming sense where not audibly, but like I heard in my mind, in my spirit, I love you. Son, I love you. And I was like, okay, I don't need to perform. And I essentially, I took what I wrote, and I turned it over, and I spent five minutes sharing my testimony, and I spent the rest of the time trying my best to walk people through

what Romans have to say, what the book of Romans has to say about salvation. You know, this is why in the traditional liturgy, it's chanted. One of the reasons for the chant, people think it's to be really theatrical, smells and bells, you know, the traditional Latin mess. It's not, it's really the opposite, because when the gospel is chanted, the preacher, takes his personality out of it. And it's just the word. He's pronouncing it in this way

that is quite beautiful, but it's without the, you know, and here's the moment when I'm going to really put it a lot of gusto into it. I had a priest in New York, a very good friend of mine, who said that some of these priests and preachers who make it a big show and a performance, they tell jokes

like ham actors in a dying vaudeville play. And what they ought to do is limit their repertoire to the jokes that St. John told the Blessed Mother well her son bled on the cross. Yeah. It's a very intense way of saying it. Yeah. But I think it's a good message. You know, you're You're talking about the son of God. Yeah. God himself, the second person of the Trinity comes down, takes on flesh, dwells among us. Yeah. Suffers in his passion as crucified to redeem mankind. It's not there for you to go do a soft shoe and shuffle off to Buffalo. Right. 100%. And you're in and you feel this ease the moment that you actually get up there. You say, oh, I don't need to, I can take the tap shoes off. Yeah, I mean, 100%. I mean, I think there's much to be taken from and learn from

Catholicism in regards to Protestant practice where, like, the liturgy is beautiful and the history, like church history is beautiful. And I think removing yourself from that, it takes away from what it actually is. Well, I love that just even your experience of it, I'm glad that it didn't affect your testimony, ultimately. But even that feeling of your muscle memory. In modernity, we think of virtue and vice as just, oh, I did this thing, but it doesn't matter. So, okay, I look at porn every single night, and I go further and further into these kinds of fantasies, but that's not going to affect my real life. That's just a thing that I do at night.

But we're creatures of habit. Vice and virtue are habits. So if you just do something all the time. Yeah. Well, just neurologically, the data says much different. It's like I love, there's a lot of data around just like your brain, your heart, in the way that you interact in the world. And so like, for example, a few days ago on social media, I just posted like a 60-second clip of me saying, is masturbation sin? Yes. And here's what masturbation is, and here's what First Corinthians says about love,

compare and contrast the two and tell me where it lines up. Yeah. You know. And it goes. viral because, you know, some people are agreeing, but most people are disagreeing. And what happens is, is when you're confronted with conviction, you don't like that, you know? And I think as someone who's a believer, there's a distinct difference between condemnation and conviction. Conviction's a healthy thing. It comes from the Holy Spirit. Condemnation doesn't exist for the believer. Romans 8

1 says, therefore, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So wrestling with those two things, but I don't have to be. have to necessarily surrender to my conviction. And if I separate myself from that conviction, because I'm disconnected neurologically, because I've done this thing enough where I've justified it, now it's not that big of a deal. Right. Now I no longer feel convicted by. Because does anybody seriously believe it's not a sin? Does any, I know plenty of people are going to say, oh, it's not a sin, it's fine, it's healthy. I don't know, you've got the New York Health Department saying it's good for you to, you know, do what Woody Allen, euphemistically called sex with

someone you love. But does it, nobody, Norm MacDonald had a whole bit on this. Yeah. Where he was doing a show, I think, in San Francisco. And Norm gets up, he goes, yeah, sex is a filthy, shameful, disgusting thing that's obviously only meant for procreation. And the audience is shocked by this. He goes, you know, like, you're going to have a one-night stand, are you going to do it? What's the first thing you do? You close the blinds. Yeah. This is not the kind of thing you're doing for everybody to see. So just any, or people just just, you're kidding themselves, right? Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, it's just a reality that you're forming a relationship with a screen in your hand. So not only is it, it integrates selfishness,

it dissipates your ability to execute self-control, you're becoming a poor lover. Like, you're training yourself to finish quickly. It's contradictory to anything that is applicable to love or being a good spouse. Right. There's no, there's no positive things. about it unless you're saying, well, I just want to give in to my desires, give into my flesh. Well, Romans 12 says that we're a living sacrifice. And in Romans 12 goes on to talk about we're not to be conformed by the world, but rather we're to be transformed by renewing of our mind. We're to go through this metamorphosis so that we can know what the perfect will of God is. So we can appear in contrast. Right. So if I can't understand what is reality,

and what is me giving into my flesh, if that becomes blurry, then sure, I'm going to try to justify. Well, that's the traditional understanding of two wills, right? The things I want to do, I don't do, and things I don't want to do. Yeah, Roman 7, yeah. So the rational will is supposed to mediate between the perfect will of God and your fleshy, bodily, appetitive will. Yeah. And this was, you didn't need a Ph.D. in philosophy to understand this for most of history. Now, nobody seems to know anything.

But that was understood. Because my feelings are my identity. Right. Yeah, exactly. It is what's propagated. Yes. And so since we're talking about religion, when you say that looking at porn and doing what people do and they look at porn,

is giving yourself a relationship with your hand. Right. And Pamela Henderson or something and a screen. As my college buddy, I don't think he coined it, but I did laugh when he mentioned that line. And a screen, though, is it darker than just the screen? Is it more spiritual than just the screen? Oh, absolutely.

Is it just demons? Or you just, is it a liturgical act of worship to demons? Well, I mean, to put it really bluntly. Well, if your objective when it comes to sex is to, as a believer, if your objective is to be between a man and a wife, and that to be a representation of Christ and his church, like what place does that have? And John 1010 talks about how the enemy wants to kill, still, and destroy. Well, if I can still the way that you see intimacy, I can cause you to create an idol. And all of a sudden, this thing becomes an idol. And I'm disillusioned into the fact to believe that this is something I need.

And it's a real addiction. Like neurologically, like you will form an addiction, something that you do over and over again that gives you a, you know, this dopamine hits your brain. It makes you feel good. Yeah, it makes you feel good. but you're forming this artificial relationship with this fictitious reality. Right. I guess my question, though, is it's a fictitious reality in that these performers are not really the characters that they portray are not really their stage names.

But I wonder in a deeper sense, is it a real thing? Are you forming an intimate relationship with the principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places? Yes. Absolutely. Well, I mean, that's what the enemy tried to do to Jesus. If I can get you to compromise your identity, I can get you to compromise further. It's like, you know, even in the garden, did God really say that? Did he really say that? Right. Do you know, providentially, just today, I mentioned something about Genesis on my daily show, and someone wrote in and said, well, Michael, the quote you said, that's not the first thing that the serpent says in the garden. Actually, the first thing is this question, hold on a second. Did God really say, did he really mean you were going to die? Yeah. Yeah. It's not quite that.

Yeah. So to question that identity. And then even now, you see all these headlines about the sex worker rights. And especially all of the sexual revolution, LGBT stuff, we're heading into the month of June, which is now one of the 12 months of the year dedicated to the rainbow. I think pretty soon they're going to invent a 13th month to be another gay pride month. So we're heading into June and you're seeing all these corporations begin to really push this stuff. And I can't help but notice one of the guys, I think it's actually a girl who identifies as a guy, who designed the pride clothing. Pride, the queen of all vices.

Pride, the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. And in addition to that, they use the rainbow, which is a symbolism of God's promise. did not destroy the world. Right. One of the holiest symbols ever. Yeah. Well, yeah, like one of the first covenants. Right. And a symbol given to us by God. But one of the people who designed the clothing for Target is an overt Satanist. And I can't help but notice whenever I see these viral clips go around of some pro-sex work person or some pro-onlyfans person or some shill for the porn industry will come out, there's very often demonic, devilish imagery that goes on. along with that. Horns and tails and pitchforks.

Well, yeah. Las Vegas is Sin City. It's just, how come it's always these same images and these same symbols, all of which have been considered demonic and occult for thousands of years? Yeah, even, you know,

to even further it on, like, and the goat as well. The goat, yeah. So the goat, like the, so I saw this on the target clothing. Yeah. There was a guy who he had goat horns on his head. Yeah. And then he had a goat, thing on, head on his shirt, which was some satanic thing. And you see it in the depiction of

demon, like Baphomet or somebody. Yeah. Does that feature into porn or no? I mean, I would just pointing to the first, like the deep symbolism that points directly to evil. But to your point, yes, it is a direct correlation of evil, but where, you know, where God is absent, there is only evil. Yeah. So I would say yes, to your point, it's a direct window into evil, into demons, into all these things. And that's why it's so dark and it leads to death. And to the person advocating for the porn industry saying, well, how else could this person provide for their family? They had to do that.

This is their right. Who in their right mind wants to be a prostitute? Yeah. Like, no one wants that. It's just a lie. But no one wants that. You don't wake up or you don't go to bed at night. You lay down your head on a pillow and you think, I'm so proud of myself because I'm selling myself for sex.

You don't do that. It's contradictory to the way that you're wired. It transcends belief. Yeah. But often when you push people on this, you say, well, I have to be a stripper. I have to be a prostitute or I have to be in porn or something like that. You say, why can't you work in the service industry? I've worked plenty of service industry jobs.

But I would go even further than that. Well, here's what I would challenge. There's something that happened to you that made you believe that you could not pursue the thing that you're passionate about. And because you can't pursue the thing you're passionate about because the trauma, whether it happened to you or you did it, you now define yourself through the lens of that trauma. And you see yourself as incapable of doing the thing that you want to do, so there's nothing

left for you to do but to compromise. But isn't there... Because compromise is easy. Right. But I just mean, since we all encounter the service industry throughout the day, you go get a coffee, you get a handover or something, and you think, okay, many, if not most of us, have worked these jobs at some point. They're not the most technically difficult jobs.

Pulling a good shot of espresso, actually is kind of difficult. But still, you can learn how to do it. But very often what people will say is well, but they can't make as much money. You can make more money per hour. Oh, yeah. You can sell crack also. This is what I think. Well, okay, you can make a decent enough living, though.

Like, come on. You smuggle, you know, weapons or whatever. There's a variety of things that you could do that you shouldn't do, that you could make money. Right. But just because you could doesn't mean you should. Right, right. I could see all of those temptations, especially for people. It's just so chilling to hear what that agent asked you.

The first thing, hey, tell me about your childhood. Yeah. Yeah, it's twisted. Oh, broken home, perfect. Oh, absolutely. You're looking for someone who you can manipulate based on the way that they see themselves. Because if you don't have a foundation to stand on, you're going to be with a win. Or you're going to go into whatever way that sounds good.

Because you don't know who you are and you're looking to the world to conform you. So how do we fix it? I know it's a fallen world. people really ought to focus first on their relationship with God. Yeah. And they ought to, you know, work on sanctification and virtue and all the rest of that. Yeah. That doesn't let the politics off the hook.

We live in public. Yeah. We prosecuted pornographers for porn. Yeah. For obscenity very recently. During the Bush administration, Bush number two. Yeah. There were pornographers who were sent to prison.

Yeah. For, just not for child porn, not for other, just for, smut. Can we just do that? Why is it that an eight-year-old can log on to any of these porn sites and watch whatever they want? Yeah, so I had the opportunity to speak at Capitol Hill and we're advocating for the Earned Act. So the Ernie Act has three different pieces. The most important piece would be creating a solidified way of verifying one's identity through a government-issued ID. Okay. So actually, Louisiana and two other states, Utah, and I forget the third, have implemented this legislation even though it hasn't passed yet. So you have to be 18. And what's crazy

is like right now, in other places, you can just go to a site and make up a birthday or just click, are you 18? Sure. And it bypasses that. I used to do that on tobacco websites for cigars. January 1st, 1902. Okay. That's my birthday. Yeah, there's no barrier. So advocating for that, incredibly helpful and just making people aware of how it's impacting people. Like, average age of exposure, 11 years old. Wow. 84% of people who see porn under the age of 15 for the first time is incidental exposure. Someone's looking for something on, you know, they're doing a biology project. They scroll down one too many times and all of a sudden they see something as pornographic. If there's no barrier, if there's

no, you know, if you don't have some kind of safety controls on your smart device, it's so easily accessible. Because back in the day, for me, you know, it's like if you stayed up too late, like Skinimax and HBO after dark, you know, but because of streaming and because of cell phones, it's so easily accessible that you don't have to look for it, it's going to find you. Right. Right. And to your point, it's become so normative, and then like only fans and so on and so on, it's become so normative that it's so prevalent that it's just out there for everyone. And it's like, when something becomes the norm, it's like, well, that might be bad, but it's just the way it is. People are going to see it. I also think even, I mean, we're talking about hardcore pornography

industry, preying on people. Yeah. But I was just back in Los Angeles. You drive down Sunset Boulevard and look at just regular billboards, pretty risque. Or you go on Instagram and just regular content, like of people you know, maybe because I worked in L.A. for a bit, some of my old pals from out there are a little more risque to begin with. But that kind of content, the content in advertising, it's all kind of shades of gray. Well, yeah. Well, if you look at the laws around advertisement. They're from 10, 15 years ago where porn wasn't so prevalent, but

to advertise on Twitter, the age of consent's 13. So you can advertise whatever you want to 13 it up, but no one foresaw the fact that people would be advertising pornography, but that industry, to my point, $100 billion industry.

So there's that much money at stake. So you're asking me to change that legislation? when it's making that much money. Right. Even knowing it's contributing to rape culture, it's contributing to sex trafficking, it's contributing to, it's insane. So there's this person,

her name's Heidi Olson, she's a critical care nurse in Kansas City, Missouri, 50 plus cases per year of a sibling raping their, you know, a little boy raping a little girl, or a little boy raping his brother. Multiple cases. This is happening in Kansas, in Missouri, 100% of the time

that kid watched so much porn that he went and did that. I assume this is a spike in these numbers. I assume this is not a normal thing that nurses have been observing for... Unfortunately, she sees it so much that that's all she does. Man.

So that's, you know, I had the opportunity to, It's a partner with Nicosi, so the National Coalition opposing sexual exploitation and Exodus Cry. And we were at Capitol Hill advocating for that legislation. We sat down with different state representatives, and there was a woman there, and she was sharing her story where she was dating someone, and then they went to Vegas, and while they're in Vegas, this person actually drugs her, and he rapes her and films it, and then he has a few friends come, and they rape her.

and they all film it, and he puts this on PornHub. And it stays on Pornhub for two years. It becomes very popular. It becomes monetized. Eventually, the person's identified. It's taken down. He gets arrested and charged. Yet, the images still exist on Google.

And Google says there's no clear, you know, there's no clarity regarding this person. Consent. Yeah, there's no consent. There's no clear, like, you know, around, the whole consent thing. There's no, there's no clear sign of this person being objectified or raped or anything like that. So they left the imagery up, even with that case. Even if the guy gets arrested. Right. So, so that's the reality that we live in. I wonder to, I mean,

this is a good framing of the issue because it's, it'll probably resonate more. You say, well, obviously it's about sexual crimes and sure, breaking laws that are already on the book. But isn't there also an argument that if 90% of men are looking at this stuff or have looked at it at some point, it's probably much higher than that. And this is a regular problem that is constantly degrading people's views of themselves, views of other people, you're communing with demons, let's just call it what it is. How do you have a good country if 100% of men or their own? about and a large number of women are perpetually in a state of mortal sin. Isn't that a problem for the political community to try to work on? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I think that what you're wrestling with is a tremendous amount of money. Of money and power. In power. Yeah. And then also this false belief that I should be able to do whatever I feel like. Yeah. Right.

And then you... That's freedom. Yeah. Freedom. Porn is freedom, isn't it? What's crazy, from a Christian perspective, like, liberty is actually the choice to be able to say no to the things I ought not do.

Even when I want to do them. Right. Even when I don't want to do them. Right. You know, it's like Galatians like 22 and 23. It talks about, you know, the last thing, fruits of the spirit, self-control. Yeah. Like, self-control is evidence of the Holy Spirit.

That was the idea of liberal education and the liberal arts. was to discipline yourself, to be able to control your base appetites and desires for a higher freedom. Because the freedom, the freedom to shoot heroin or something is not, that's not freedom. Nobody really thinks that's freedom. Same goes for porn. If you told John Adams and George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, hey, the freedom thing, it's working out really great. Here in 2023 guys, you can look at as much weirdo porn as you want. And as young as I think they would say, you know what, this country, forget about it. Let's forget about it.

We made a mistake. Let's go back. That's obviously not what they thought freedom was. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I mean, to even paint it like a darker picture, it's like you, there was a Netflix documentary that I was watching like a year or two ago. And this person, he was wrongly persecuted and he was a prison. and now he had a show where he was traveling and just this is what this prison looks like.

This is what the experience is. This is, you know, the geographical location, so on and so on. And he was in this one prison and he found out that 84% of the guys there, this is a different country. But 84% of the guys there, they had been convicted of rape. And it's like, that's an astronomical amount. So he, you know, asked, you know, like 50 people or so, like, you know, how did this happen, why did this happen? And he kept getting the same answer.

In their culture, men were more important than women, and sex was something that a man was owed. Pornography, it portrays the same thing, that you should be able to walk into a room and just have sex with someone. And then also, you know, in the 80th percentile, like all pornography has some level of violence in it. So now you're digesting something,

you're developing an appetite for. You develop an appetite for something that is not only opposite of what you were designed to desire, it's actually contrary to what's reality. But if you get this appetite for it, you're going to feel insatiable until you partake.

This is something that... It's amazing how people have forgotten what taste and desire are and what they're like. No child starts out with a hankering for scotch. No 10-year-old says, I can really go for a scotch today.

Scotch is an acquired taste. Oysters are an acquired taste. Caviar. I don't know. Whatever. These things are acquired tastes. Tobacco, probably. But then you acquire them, and then you desire them. And then sometimes, once you acquire the taste for scotch, you desired rum or tequila or something.

Yeah. Did you see an interview with Andy Wachowski, who's one of the guys behind The Matrix movies, And he and his brother both became trans at a certain point. But kind of odd. The guys who created The Matrix about this disconnect between reality and the virtual reality. These guys both become trans. And Andy Wichowski, one of the brothers, gives an interview.

And he says, oh, yeah, porn was what led me to my transgender identity. I watched a bunch of porn, and then I started identifying as trans. And there are many such cases. Well, Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy was super into porn, right? Yeah, very into porn. porn. And he actually said porn was the thing that led him to this thing and this thing and this thing. And I mean, that's just the way it is. Like you, you know, at one point in my life, I could drink

one bud light and get a buzz, you know, and then, you know, you need more to, you need crack. You need crystal meth or something. Yeah, like you go on this trajectory where I need more of this thing to get this feeling that I had. Well, I think of probably a caricature of what risque material was like in the 19th century, which is, you know, a woman, a big frilly dress. She says, oh, I'm going to show a little bit of my ankle or something. And, and, but obviously the way that these baser appetites work, you're never satisfied. So, so when you say, okay, increasingly porn is violent and people are consuming more violent porn, obviously this is cultivating certain tastes and desires. And so if a eight-year-old or whatever, a 10-year-old gets hooked

on to porn, it's not that he's going to immediately start looking at weird transsexual billy goat porn, but it's going to be that he looks more. Yeah, it's going to look at a naked lady. It's like he's going to look at a playboy or something. And then it's going to be this harder thing and this harder thing. And then it gets pretty dark. Yeah. Pretty quick, just judging by the statistics. Yeah. I mean, well, even like psychologically, you see, I think it was at the 80s, there was someone who won a Nobel Prize around this research. Is, his last name was Tinbergen, and he did this research around supernormal stimulus. And he studied a level of, so he studied this butterfly. And there was this species of butterfly where he created a female

butterfly. And but he made brighter, better, you know, 3D, and put this butterfly into space. And the male butterflies tried to mate with this butterfly. And obviously didn't work. But then the byproduct of that was they started ignoring the female butterflies, and then they started fighting among each other, and then they started dying out. And it's a really, you know, it's a great correlation to what porn is, because if you're desiring something that's a fictitious reality, you're going to become insatiable for it, and you're seeing men, you know, struggling with erectile dysfunction. You're seeing people, you know, being unfaithful to their spouse. You're seeing all these things because there's a disconnect from.

from what is real in contrast to what is fake. Like the movie Inception, you know, there's this fight in this elevator scene. It's one of my favorite movies. And you don't see that and you think, man, they just have, you know, one day they must have just, you know, gotten that elevator and threw that together.

No, there was choreography. There was CGI. There was editing. There was all this stuff that went into there. There were actors. They were paid to be there. There was a director. Like pornography is the same thing.

You're creating a fantasy that doesn't exist. that's creating the experience. But if you believe that experience to be true and then you develop a desire or a taste for it, you go to seek it out and you can't find it, you're going to end up doing things that you never thought you would do. Because it's even not just the surreality of the porn film.

Sure. It's the surreality of the consumer. where you say, as you're describing, well, no, that's just compartmentalized over here. That thing that I'm doing on my computer or on my phone, that's not really me. That's just like a thing. That's a different guy. Yeah. He probably has a different name. Yeah. But we're human beings. We're integrated beings. So obviously, you can't just compartmentalize that. Yeah. And so that is going to affect your marriage. That's going to affect your relationships. It's going to affect your desires. even the moral reality.

Okay, only Joshua is morally culpable. Right. But stage name guy, there's no consequences. It's not real life. Yeah, and I think even more so, you're seeing these people develop, you know, these appetites, watching pornography, and they end up with someone, you know,

they get married. Number one, believing the lie that if I get married, my porn addiction will go away. It doesn't. And now I have these appetites for these things that I've developed, you know, a desire for, and maybe my wife isn't fulfilling them. And now I'm going to bring these presuppositions about what sex is supposed to be into my marriage bed. And then if they don't meet my desire, I'm going to continue watching porn or I'm going to go outside of the marriage because I believe I need this thing to be satisfied where God never intended marriage to be about sex.

It's a great part of marriage. but marriage in itself is not only about sex. Right. It's certainly not about sterile sex. Sure, but it's like... Well, because, again, it's like, it's idolatry. If I make sex God, I'm going to do any and everything in my power to submit and surrender to the God of sex.

Right, right. But even the idea that porn is without consequence, what people view sex is without consequence, but of course marriage traditionally understood is intended for the... the good of the spouses and for the sake of the generation and education of children. Yeah. Yeah. That it's a real love, a love that is so real that it actually becomes infleshed in this real new person and hopefully many new people who, you know, are a result of that love.

Yeah. We divorce all of that. Even our popular culture. Yeah. Well, we live in a very contraceptive culture. Yeah. Well, and also it's just there's a, there's a huge difference between love and lust. Yeah. They're so different. They're not similar. They're polar opposite. Yeah. One's selfish, one's selfless. Yes. You know, one's very sacrificial. And one costs you something. One's easy, and you're compromised. Right. And one's about me. One's about self-control. One's about giving into myself. Right. I mean, one of the traditional definitions of love is that love is to will the good of the other person for their own sake. Yeah. And so obviously, that's the opposite. But I just, I was talking with a friend of mine. I think there was some headline about how in

Japan people want to look at porn more than they want to date or have sex. Yeah. And my friend said, that's insane. Could you imagine you got, you got an opportunity to sleep with a woman or to look at porn? Could you imagine someone choosing porn? Yeah. I said, I totally can understand that. Well, yeah. I mean, speaking in that culture, you go into a place where you don't even have to interact with a human person to get food. I mean, we're living in a culture where people don't want to pick up a phone and call somebody. It's only text or we want to talk to a screen. We don't want any.

People have so much social anxiety. In that culture, yeah, of course, the porn requires no effort, is never going to judge you. There's no rejection. There's no rejection. And the porn can be whatever stuff you type in. You're going to have like three furries and an alien and I don't know, whatever. Man, gosh, like speaking of that, so I was. Speaking of first, I was at a conference.

So it's called Think Media, and it's a Christian conference, and bring in different speakers about different topics. And the objective is for you to be able to think critically about, you know, things that are going on in culture and be able to speak into them as Christian leaders. And there was this person just talking about the insane stuff going on inside of schools. And I did not know this. But in Washington State, there is multiple schools that have rooms with kitty litter in them for people who identify as furries to urinate.

This can't be real. This is real. I refuse to believe that this is real. This is real. So there's, there's, tax dollars have gone to building rooms that have kitty litter in them. There's litter boxes that, you know, know, adolescents go into and urinate and the teachers will get penalized. You know, their jobs are on the line for them to communicate with them based on how they identify.

Though I prefer to just reject the possibility that this could even be real. In another sense, I feel better about that than I do about some guy going into the girls' room. If a guy thinks he's a cat and he wants to go to a litter box, at least he's not invading a women's private space. It's not exactly ordered living. Probably not conducive to human flourishing. Right. Well, even more detrimental than that,

there's legislation in Washington State trying to be passed where 13 and up, you could say, I want to change my gender, and then they contact government authority, and without any consent or knowledge, of the parents, they save the child, and then they mutilate them or provide them with whatever procedure or medication, using tax dollars to do so, and the parents have no say-so about the matter. I saw a headline in the Associated Press, which has become very left-wing.

Used to pretend to at least be down the middle, and that's a very left-wing activist news outlet. And the headline said something to the effect of, Washington State protects trans kids from parents. Who's doing the protecting? Right. What does that protection look like? That's pretty dark. For me, it's just incredibly sad to be at a place.

I'm a father of three very young boys, so four, three and one. And how can that be? In what place do we get where adults are allowing kids. to tell them they feel some sort of way that's been propagated to them like through a person or you know an organization or whatever where have they heard it yeah because this is not a thought that enters someone's mind normally how do we get to a point where we're allowing kids at 13 years old that can't vote can't see a rated-d-ar movie can't do numerous things decide they can make a decision that's going to change our life.

So the answer, how do we get to that point, is in part because of perpetual ubiquitous degrading sin. So then having come full circle, and you've come out of it, more than full circle, and you're in a much better place now, do you ever have contact with the people from the foreign industry, from your old life? Do you ever reach back out to them? Do you ever say like, hey, guys, is it better option? option. Yeah. So for me, so I got to the place that I got to in life through, you know, number one, you know, having a relationship with God, developing an understanding of the Bible and allowing it to conform my life in contrast to the world conforming me or my feelings or my

past, my feelings. And as I go on that journey, I go to counseling as well. And, And part of that was I had to kind of dismantle and destroy everything that I thought to be true. And early on, like me becoming, you know, a Christian, I was like, I'm going to save the world, you know. And so I would, I reached back out to those people and I started, you know, interacting with him on social media and like talking with them. And what I found was I still had a lot of trauma that I was carrying. And it was actually unhealthy for me. to see the things they were posting. And, you know, even though I was able to acknowledge that this is not something that I would ever want to be part of again.

Or, and then, you know, it was bad. But it was impacting me negatively. So I had to distance myself from them. But to your point, I didn't continue reaching out. But what they saw, and many people have saw, is I wanted to take my life because I thought I would never, be a father. I would never get married. I thought, like, sure, I could convince a girl to marry me, like, sure, I could get a girl pregnant, but I would never have the capacity to be a father. I would never have the capacity to be a husband. I think most guys, no matter how well-adjusted

you are, you think, that's a lot of responsibility. Yeah. But I think pretty much every man who has become a father says that, especially someone who's got this fairly colorful and traumatic past, it's going to feel that as special. Yeah. And then in addition to that, I thought, okay, for me, if I'm not leading something or being creative, it's, like, detrimental to me emotionally. Like, I need to be able to be creative in a way that impacts people. And I thought, well, there's no way that I'll be able to do that. Like, no one's hiring me for, like, any kind of acting job that's legitimate.

I'm not doing any kind of modeling, probably just not healthy for me to do. So what organization is going to take me seriously? Who am I going to contribute to in any capacity? So I wanted to take my life because I thought there's things, like anything that I long for regarding a future, I didn't think were possible. So for me, I lead a very healthy organization. I do itinerant work.

I'm about to plan a church. I've written a book. I have a healthy family. I love my kids. I lead my family well. I'm doing everything I thought that wasn't possible. So when people see, like, it's not about my success or the fact that, you know, I have this influence or whatever.

Like, that's whatever. I'm living this healthy life and I'm full of joy because I have these things in my life that I didn't think possible. And there's no... You're prudent in that. I read a book, a staple of spiritual combat called Spiritual Combat by Don Lorenzo Scoupil.

It's like 500 years old. And in it, he talks about the impulse to face temptation head on, and I can overcome it. And for certain temptations, you can. And for certain temptations, that can be helpful for really take it on head on. He says, sexual temptation is not one of them. Run. You've got to run from that.

You're not stick around. So if you're following these porn-affiliated people, and you're seeing that, it's probably going to do more harm than good. You've got to be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Yeah. So for me, I had people in my life to say, here's how I'm feeling, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm doing. It's not a good idea because what I didn't have in my life is people to both encourage me and correct me. because we need to be called up, you know, and called out sometimes. So for me, I didn't have that.

So having it in my life and saying, hey, this is what I'm doing. Hey, Joshua, that's not a good idea. I don't think you're in a place where this is healthy. But, you know, eight years later, living the life I'm living now, there's people that are in that industry that have one foot in, one foot out, or maybe have left the industry or reaching out to me saying, I actually left or I actually did this because I see what you're doing. And it's not, you know, there's no promise of a wife or a husband.

There's no promise of whatever. There's no promise of that for anybody. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is people think, well, you know, because I've made these three choices, I can't have a wife or husband. Some people don't get married. Some people, if they do get married, can't have children. That's life.

It's a fallen world. It's a tough place. It doesn't need to make or break your sanctification. Yeah. And the beautiful thing about that, so joy is not something that's circumstantial. Yeah. Right.

Joy is something you can't obtain on your own. It's a gift that's offered to you to be received. And it comes through a relationship with Jesus. Yeah. So for me, I get to share that story. It's like, how did you get from A to B? I was like, well, there's one answer, and he's a person.

and he has a name. His name is Jesus. But for me, it was Jesus. Again, there's so many aspects of, like, I'm sure that we would differ in certain things regarding theology, but what I love is the commitment to, like, we would differ in that, you know, what sanctification looks like. In a moment in contrast to it being progressive and- You would say it's in a moment? Right. Okay. topic for another time. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's just like, you know, you've got salvation,

sanctification, justification, and what those things look like. But salvation is progressive in that you are progressively being changed. Yeah, yeah. So progressively, there's this journey that you go on, and as you're going on that journey, like, you have to take steps of faith. And those steps have to be away from, like, second, Corinthians 517 is real for the life of a believer. The person that you used to be is dead, and now you have a new identity, a new heart, a new purpose, but you have to move towards that

purpose. Yeah, right. Because you still have free will. Yeah, you have the free will to reject God's grace. Yeah, to go back. Right. And so for me, it's like, step by step, these are the steps that I took, but it started with this one catalyst that is irreplaceable. There's this one piece of the puzzle that you can't replace, but these steps along the way, and people are seeing that, and they're responding to the fact, it's like, it's not that, you know, you have this or you have that, is you've got this joy that I didn't think I could ever have, and you believe that. This inarticulable, undeniable joy that lives within you, for instance. It's. It Yeah, but it's like, like, I want that.

But the fact that you have it, it's intriguing enough to me to ask the questions. It reminds me of a line from C.S. Lewis when he said, when you're a kid, you think chocolate is the greatest thing. You cannot imagine anything greater than chocolate. If someone came up to you, these days, I guess this would happen in a kindergarten classroom, but someone comes up to you and says, hey, you ever hear about sex? And you're a kid, you say, I don't know, I don't know what sex is. Yeah. A guy says, well, you know, sex is great.

It's better than chocolate. Yeah. And if you're a kid, you have to think, well, I guess sex involves chocolate. Because chocolate is the best thing. So whatever is better, it's got to involve chocolate. And you don't realize there's something better. And unfortunately, in our culture, that's kind of where people stop. Sure.

It would seem a lot today is better. Okay, no, you're right. Sex is better than chocolate, and sex is the best thing. But there is an even better thing. Yeah. There are many better things, and there's ultimately a highest good. which is what your desire is supposed to. Yeah.

And I love that, you know, so because, like, suicidal ideation is part of my story, it's like there's a project that I'm working on where there's these, you know, this organization called Stay Here, and there are organizations around that. You know, every 40 seconds someone dies of suicide. So we did one project where you would appreciate this. we just took a bunch of different Christian influencers, and we just read through the Apostles' Creed. And we read through the Apostles' Creed, and that was it.

But it was not one person. It was many people. It wasn't one organization. It was many organizations, many people, one message, one unified message, a reflection of John 17. This unified message. When people see, you know, when the world sees us, you'll see reflection of Christ.

So we did that. And then our next project is we're working with NFL quarterback, So we've got like 15 Super Bowl winners, Super Bowl winners, like multiple Hall of Famers. And we're doing this video. And they're just simply saying, stay here. Your life matters. Yeah. You're loved.

Because that's what I didn't think. I didn't think that I was loved. I didn't think that I mattered. And just seeing that God is allowing me to be just a small part in projects like that and do some of the things I'm doing and live the life that I'm living, you know, I wake up every day and it's like a dream, you know. I have friends who got to your point where they were just about to do it. And I have friends who did it.

I have multiple friends who did it. And you think, what, that thin line, that moment. Because it would be one thing, if you just knew a lot of people, not a lot, but some number of people who came up to the brink and then they pulled back. And you say, okay, well, maybe that's just a feature of suicidal ideations.

You get up to a point and then you go no further. But knowing, you know, more people than I do who killed themselves, you know, no, people go over that line. That's a real cliff. And people fall off it all the time. And you got up that close. Yeah.

And then a bank teller said my name. And what's wild, so my friend Jacob, who's the CEO and founder of that organization stay here, he says simply, it's the easiest thing that you could ever, you know, just dealing with suicide. It's much easier than you would think in that the person just needs to be asked, hey, are you thinking about taking your life? And more often than not, research says they'll say yes. And then once they say it, it becomes real, and then you can have a conversation.

Like the guy who jumps off a building, anyone who survives that says instantly they regretted it. Well, in the air. Many times, I forget, I think someone jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever, which how they lived, I'm not sure. but literally the second you did it, it's like, God help me. Yeah, right, right. And so just to even put that out there, I mean, getting back to, I guess, the top point of the conversation, the power of a word and the power of a name to identify things and distinguish between them. I mean, so much of the political correctness or this kind of agenda that seems so destructive is a bit of.

calling things by fake names in order to manipulate how people view them. Yeah. And I love, like, in Hebrew, my name means Yahweh is salvation. Of course. Yeah. And then so our first son, we named him Canon. So canon in Hebrew means measuring stick. So for me, never thought I would be a father.

So he was the measure of God's grace to me in my life. Can't beat that as a place to end. Joshua, pleasure to have you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Being the best version of yourself is an everyday journey,

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